In California, you now have to be a certified teacher in order to homeschool your own children!!!

The lazy, liberal supreme court of California has decided to virtually outlaw homeschooling because there would be “an unreasonable burden on the state to have to supervise each and every home in which a child was being educated.”

OUTRAGEOUS!!!

Who cares more about their children's welfare and well-being and academic progress and future success in this wickedly difficult world of ours? The California board of education or their mommies and daddies!?

I am so sick of people pigeonholing homeschoolers, deciding without meeting our children that they are unsocialized, undersocialized, undereducated, or even (gasp!) nerdy!!

My homeschooled daughter receives around 20 college letters each day. We had to start a filing system for them because she was getting overloaded. She recently entered the public high school easily and smoothly -- becoming the lead in the school play, getting asked out by about ten different hormonally charged boys almost immediately, making A's in her AP classes, and otherwise showing a tremendous aptitude for academic and social life. Her homeschooling enabled her to be confident in who she is, comfortable in her own skin, secure in her beliefs even when those around her are parroting the latest trendy political jargon. Here's a recent conversation she had with a boy at school.

Boy: You're pro-life? Weird. I thought everyone was pro-choice these days.

Hilary: Do you believe you have a soul?

Boy: Well, yeah, I guess I do.

Hilary: So when do you think your soul entered your body? When exactly is it that a baby has a soul?

Boy: I don't know. Nobody can know that.

Hilary: So you don't know when the baby has a soul, but you want to allow a girl to kill her baby anyway?

Boy: Oh, well I guess I never really thought about it.

Hilary: (eye roll...)

My other homeschooled daughter has performed in operas, children's theatre, on stage at the Charlotte Folk Society, etc. She is highly social and very comfortable ad libbing onstage before she begins playing.

I am so appalled at what is happening in our country. Haven't these legislators read Orwell's 1984? Do they really secretly want us to be a Communist nation? Didn't they see what happened to Fascist regimes in the 1940s? How can we allow our freedoms to be snatched from within our bosoms this way? Where has the conscience of America gone? As a nation, we have become so apathetic that this news in California rarely evoked a yawn from local news crews here on the east coast. Why?!?!?

I hope the good homeschoolers of California know that we support them wholeheartedly. And if lawmakers are listening, now would be the time to take back your power from the courts and draft legislation that will end this travesty of justice once and for all.

A final note...

Although I have homeschooled for 12 years now, I have met only one mother that I felt was unqualified to teach her children and that was because she had a learning disability, not because she was negligent in any way. 12 years and many hundreds of families later, I cannot say that I have EVER met a homeschooled child who was not fully prepared for college. Ordinarily, the homeschooled collegian is more studious, has better study skills, is more mature, has fewer problems with alcohol consumption and drug use, and in general is steady, stable, and ready to function in society. On the other hand, I have seen many a school kid dive headlong into trouble at college.

To penalize involved parents who have sacrificed a second income in order to provide their children with a better education than the public school could offer JUST BECAUSE IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO CHECK UP ON THEM is totally ridiculous. And deadly serious.

My sleeves are rolled up and I'm ready to duke this out. California, here I come!!!

Yours -- with steam coming out my ears!

Megan Elizabeth